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  MacLeod, preserving his dignity, made no quick moves to hide his nakedness. Instead, he acted as if there was nothing out of the ordinary in receiving groups of armed guests on the barge in his altogether. “You couldn’t have knocked?”

  “You were otherwise engaged, I think,” Farid said with a look that, if he thought Farid actually capable of emotion, MacLeod would have called a smirk. “Where is Dr. Amina?”

  MacLeod called into the bathroom. “Cinderella, your ugly stepmother’s here.” The sound of the shower stopped with an abrupt squeak. “I’d recommend the robe on the back of the door.” Chilly, MacLeod wrapped the towel casually around his waist.

  “I’d recommend you gather the doctor’s things and take them to her, Mr. MacLeod,” Farid said calmly. ‘There is no need for all of us to be shamed.”

  “I don’t suppose you could wait on deck.”

  “I’m afraid not.” Farid and his men watched MacLeod intently as he collected bits of Maral’s clothing from around the sofa and delivered it to her in the bathroom. When MacLeod exited the bathroom, he closed the door soundly behind him.

  “I was about to put on a pot of coffee. Interested?” Off the Arabs’ sullen silence, he gestured down at his towel-clad body, “Look, Farid, it’s obvious I’m not armed here. Tell the boys to put the toys away and tell me what’s going on.”

  “What’s going on is that we are in the midst of an international security crisis and you’re luring this woman away to play your childish sex games.” Farid stood and faced MacLeod, nose to nose. “I could have you arrested for kidnapping a diplomat of the Palestinian people, Mr. MacLeod, but I would rather avoid the unpleasant press that would generate. But I will if you force my hand. Do we have an understanding?”

  Something in Farid’s voice … “Whoa, back it up. What international security crisis? This is no longer about Hebron, is it?” Farid seemed unwilling to give him any details, and MacLeod pressed him. “Tell me. If this involves Maral, I need to know.” Still nothing. “I make a better ally than enemy, Farid,” and the look of warning in MacLeod’s eyes gave the Palestinian a taste of what it might be like to go up against him.

  Farid conceded and, with a gesture of his hand, told the others to put their weapons away. “A public bus exploded outside Tel Aviv yesterday, killing four Israeli soldiers and a civilian bus driver. Someone worked very hard to make it look like the work of the Jewish fundamentalists, but we have reason to believe it was the work of the terrorist organization Hamas. And that the negotiations are the next target. We thought at first they had kidnapped Dr. Amina.”

  “Hamas?” Maral stood in the doorway of the bathroom, clothed, her face full of shock. “That can’t be. We had their guarantee. They agreed to the truce. They swore—”

  “That was before Hebron,” Farid pointed out. “Everything’s changed.”

  “No,” she breathed, unbelieving, and all the stress and worry she’d managed to leave somewhere between her hotel room and the top of the Eiffel Tower came crashing back onto her shoulders, aging her beyond her years.

  “Say your good-byes. We’re leaving now,” Farid commanded her.

  MacLeod looked to Maral, who still seemed stunned by the revelation. He knew he should probably just back away and let Farid do his job. Maral’s evening of adventure, their night of mutual pleasure and comfort had ended with the cold cruel dawn of reality. Farid and his men would protect her. It’s what they were trained to do. But she just looked so lost. So all alone. And if anything were to happen to her because he’d done nothing … Instead of backing away, MacLeod stepped in. “I’m going with her.”

  “Out of the question,” Farid said, taking Maral by the arm to guide her to the door.

  “I don’t think you heard me,” MacLeod said, stepping in front of them, pulling Farid’s hand away from her. His voice was pleasant, but carried a hard core of steel. “I said, I’m going with her.” Even in just a towel, he could be quite intimidating. “Farid, you need me. If this is a Hamas threat, you’re going to need all the help you can get.”

  “No.” Farid’s word was final. He started for the door again, gesturing Maral to follow.

  “Last time, Farid,” MacLeod tried one more tack. “I stay with her, or I go to the press. What do you say?”

  Farid glared at him, then inclined his head just a bit, acknowledging his defeat. “You have five minutes.”

  MacLeod only needed four and half. As he emerged from the bathroom, dressed and ready to leave, he realized he’d walked into the middle of a conflict of wills.

  “I will not permit this behavior,” Farid was growling at Maral. MacLeod’s first instinct was to come to her aid, but then with one look at the stern resolution on her face, he realized that when the war was with words, Maral had the situation well in hand.

  “I am not your wife, Farid, and I am not your daughter. You work for the delegation, and, therefore, you work for me. You have no right to treat me any differently than you do the other delegates.”

  “None of them behave as shamefully as you!”

  “Bullshit!” Farid was floored by her use of such a crass Americanism. MacLeod could tell she’d done it just to watch him flinch. “Halabi is a drunkard. Al-Sayyeed has a different whore to his room every night. Don’t tell me you don’t know,” she said over his protests. “Your men are procuring them for him. And I’m sure all their security clearances are just impeccable, aren’t they?” It was clear Farid would not allow himself to be bested by a woman, but he was having trouble figuring a way out of this awkward situation. Maral, sensing this, moved in for the kill. “From now on, Farid, you treat me with the same courtesy and respect you do the men, or you and I will be having a chat with the chairman about these breaches in al-Sayyeed’s security. Do we have an understanding?”

  Farid was not a man to shuffle or to hem and haw, even in defeat. He would stand his ground no matter what. His gaze was steady and his voice firm as he said, “As you say, Doctor.” He glanced at MacLeod, well aware he’d heard what transpired. “You’re ready.” It was not a question.

  “After you.” MacLeod gestured toward the door, grabbing his long dark coat from the back of a chair. He took Maral’s arm and wondered, as they followed Farid out of the barge, if the security chief knew just how much she was trembling.

  From the air, Paris seemed to go on forever. As Avram watched through the airplane’s tiny window, the city grew larger and larger. Descent was one of his favorite parts of flying—second only to the in-flight films. He loved the thrill of barely controlled falling. Nothing between him and a burnt crater in the ground but the skill of a man unseen, unknown, yet entrusted with the lives of hundreds of people. It was as close to life on the edge as he would allow himself.

  He’d called Paris home for a couple of decades, six hundred years or so ago. He figured he’d called just about everywhere home at one time or another. Wherever his people had been dispersed, it seemed he’d been there at least once in his travels. A man wandering in search of his identity could cover a lot of territory in two thousand years. In Paris, he’d lived on a piece of swampland known as the Marais. He’d opened a small shop—Avram ben Mordecai, Scribe—and made a pleasant life for himself there in the Jewish Quarter. But only Jerusalem had ever truly been his home, and it wasn’t long before the urge to move on had taken him on the road again.

  With a few jolts and bumps, the E1 A1 jet touched down at Orly and Avram jockeyed to be among the first off as it taxied to the jetway. He’d checked no baggage, only his government-issue roll-aboard and worn leather rucksack as carry-on, and he moved briskly from the gate toward Immigration and Customs, looking like a young lawyer, or perhaps an accountant, in his conservative suit. The lines at the Immigration kiosks were long, all the morning flights from overseas seemed to arrive at once, but Avram bypassed them all and went instead to a small desk at the side of the throng. He pulled a diplomatic passport from his satchel, clearly marked with the seal of Israel, and flashed it at
the Immigration agent, who checked it cursorily to make sure the photo matched the youthful man presenting it and waved him through.

  Within minutes, he was out in the bright sunlight of Paris, squinting at the cars in the pickup lanes. He reached into his satchel, pulled out his sunglasses. Better. A dark sedan pulled up at the curb alongside him, and the window slid smoothly down. “Mordecai?” one of the two men inside asked. Avram nodded and hopped in the back.

  “Welcome to Paris, Mordecai,” the driver said. “Took you long enough to get here.”

  “Something came up,” Avram said, as they pulled away from the curb and out into airport traffic.

  “Dr. Amina! Dr. Amina! What do you think are the chances the Hamas threat will disrupt the negotiations?” The lights from the video cameras blinded her as she tried to make her way down the stairs to the driveway.

  “Doctor! Do you think there’s any hope left for East Jerusalem?” An overzealous hand pushed forward a microphone that nearly hit her in the face before it was deflected by Assad.

  “Do you fear for your personal safety, Dr. Amina?” Assad and another security man hardly managed to get Maral through the gauntlet of reporters and sound-bite specialists lying in wait outside the Hôtel Lutéstia and safely into one of the waiting cars. The other delegates fared no better.

  “ ‘Do I fear for my personal safely,’ “ Maral mocked once safely behind tinted glass with MacLeod. “Yes, I do—from them, the damn vultures. As if this isn’t hard enough.”

  “It’s okay,” MacLeod consoled her. “It’s over for now.”

  She shook her head. “It’s never over—there’ll be just as many waiting on the other end.”

  Normally the trip from the hotel to the anonymous French government building belonging to the Ministry of Education that had been pressed into service for the negotiations would take ten minutes, even in the traffic-logged streets of Paris. For a caravan of six limousines and their police escort, the trip took more like half an hour, creeping through the congested thoroughfares. Every moment, Moral was on edge, and the security men alert for the slightest sound or motion out of the ordinary.

  When they finally pulled up to the Ministry building, MacLeod could see that Moral had been right. Another throng of reporters, TV journalists, and the morbidly curious waited outside. But on this end, thanks to an Israeli security detail with no qualms about showing automatic weapons in public, the mobs were neatly contained behind strict lines of demarcation.

  Moral explained with a wry smile. “They don’t have the same image problem we do. Let a Palestinian wave an Uzi in front of Peter Jennings, and it would be a whole different ball game.” As MacLeod escorted Moral into the building, the same sorts of questions were shouted at her, but across the barricade instead of directly in her face they no longer seemed like attacks on her person. She smiled a polite “no comment” and moved inside.

  Just inside the doors, a series of airport metal detectors were in place to protect the negotiations. Assad removed his gun from his jacket and placed it on the scanner’s conveyor belt, passed through the detection gateway with no alarm, then retrieved his weapon.

  Maral placed her purse on the moving belt and walked through the gateway. She was startled when the alarm began to sound.

  “Madame?” The attendant motioned her to step back and come through the machine again. Once again the sound of the alarm filled the hallway. “I’m sorry, Madame,” the security officer said, motioning her off to the side, “but I must search you.”

  Maral submitted stoically. It was all too common an occurrence. Searches, metal detectors, road blocks, suspicion. Her privacy violated for little reason. She considered it one of the facts of her life as a Palestinian in an occupied land. MacLeod saw Maral’s face blank as the security officer’s hands passed over her body.

  Chapter Eleven

  Warsaw: April 18, 1943

  Miriam’s face tightened into an emotionless mask as the police officer’s hands pawed over her body. He was Polish, supposedly one of her own countrymen, the overstuffed pig, but he carried out the orders of his Nazi overlords with great enthusiasm. “Remove your blouse,” he ordered, and when she seemed to hesitate, he struck her hard across the face with the butt of his pistol. Her head jerked back and a ragged gash opened beneath her right eye. “Remove your blouse, moja lalka,” he mocked her—my little doll.

  Biting back tears of humiliation and rage, she complied, slowly unfastening the buttons on her white cotton blouse. At nineteen, any faith Miriam Kavner had once had in her fellow countrymen, or humanity itself, had long ago been crushed beneath the great Wall that was her people’s prison. Her father and mother had run an upscale restaurant before the war, which quickly became a soup kitchen for the starving after the Wall had cut the Jews of Warsaw off from their “purer” Aryan neighbors. Then the Expulsions began, and Levi Kavner sold everything they owned to buy himself a place on a German work crew, for the promise of protection that would give his family. But protection was just another Nazi lie—her father sent to a forced labor camp in Germany, her mother and little brother Zvi marched to the railroad cars, taken away to Treblinka. Now only Miriam remained, an unlikely warrior, a courier for the Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa, the Jewish Fighting Organization, the ZOB.

  In the parlance of the ZOB, Miriam Kavner looked “gut”—with her bleached blond hair and light complexion, she could easily pass for a Polish Christian and walk openly in the Aryan sections of the city, carrying messages, smuggling money and food sent from Jews in America or Eretz Israel, negotiating for the few weapons they’d managed to acquire. She found she was good at what she did, never drawing suspicion as she provided vital information and supplies to her comrades in the Jewish resistance. She thought her family would have been proud of her.

  But today, returning from the Aryan side in the midst of a group of munitions factory workers herded back to the Ghetto after their day’s forced labor, perhaps Miriam looked too “gut.” Carrying what could be the most important intelligence of the war, she had somehow attracted the attention of the collaborators who guarded the Gesia Street gate.

  Miriam could feel the warmth of her blood as it trickled down her cheek, and she could feel the heat of the eyes of the other Polish police guarding the gate as she pulled the tail of her blouse from the waistband of her skirt, undid the final button, slipped the blouse from her shoulders and dropped it to the ground beside her. Standing in the middle of the street clad in her brassiere, she could not stop herself from shivering despite the warmth of the afternoon sun.

  Her uniformed tormentor pulled her roughly toward him, slipped one arm tightly around her waist. “You’re very pretty,” he said, fingering one of her blond curls, “too pretty for a Jewess!” His disdainful laugh echoed in her ear. He was a squat, greasy man, desperately in need of a shave and a bath, and the thought of him touching her sent a wave of nausea through Miriam’s core. “Let’s give everyone a good look,” he said. He reached between Miriam’s breasts and forcibly ripped the brassiere from her body. The fabric tore away, leaving her exposed to the rest of the Polish squad, who whooped and hollered their approval.

  She shut her eyes and tried to shut down her mind as the officer groped and fondled her breasts, touching places she had never felt touched by a man before, but finally her tears escaped, uncontrollable. She could feel his excitement rising against her as he pulled her closer, and she thought about breaking away and running, knowing full well the machine guns at the gate would cut her down in seconds.

  But if she died here, no matter how blessed the relief might be to her, her message would die with her. No one would know the Germans planned to strike at the Ghetto before dawn tonight, no one would be prepared, everyone would die. She needed to stay alive as long as she could, to try to get the word to someone—anyone—who could warn the ZOB. Miriam steeled herself as the Pole rubbed himself against her, his fetid breath hot in her ear, his comrades whistling and applauding. With desperate eyes,
she searched the neighboring rooftops for salvation.

  Up on the roof of the apartment building at the corner of Gesia and Okopowa streets, across from the massive gates leading out of the Ghetto, Avram Mordecai and Duncan MacLeod were arguing as Avram grabbed an old Mauser rifle and thrust it into Mac Leod’s hands. “You can do this, goy. Five shots, five guards. Pick ’em off from the first-floor window,” Avram said, trying to move MacLeod toward the roof door.

  “Are you completely insane?” MacLeod stood his ground. “Are you trying to get her killed?”

  “You see what those pigs are doing to her. I’m trying to keep her alive. Now go!”

  “Listen to me.” As MacLeod tried to move away from Avram, Avram hung on tenaciously. MacLeod may have had almost a foot on him in size, but Avram was bound and determined for MacLeod to go. “Listen to me, Avram!” MacLeod said. “A grandstand play in front of two machine-gun emplacements does not make ‘alive.’ It makes ‘dead.’ I miss one shot, and they’ll be all over us.”

  “Look, I know you. You don’t miss.”

  MacLeod had to concede he was a great shot, but he still knew Avram’s plan couldn’t work. “Yeah, and what happens when that piece of German crap jams? Miriam and I’ll both be Swiss cheese. I’ll get up again, but she won’t. What does that accomplish?” He gave Avram a firm shake to try and knock some sense into him. “We have to get them away from the machine guns.”

  Avram stopped and looked at him, hearing his words but frustrated at not being able to act immediately. “Okay, you’re right. You’re right. We need a Plan B.”

  Down in the street, two more Polish policemen from the gate joined the officer, forcing Miriam to her knees while their leader bound her wrists tightly behind her neck with strips of fabric torn from her blouse.

  Avram’s eyes narrowed as he thought. “If he really wants it, they’re gonna take her somewhere. Somewhere away from those damn machine guns. Even a pig like that’s not idiot enough to pull it out in a public street. It’s a crime against the State to screw a Jew, MacLeod. Pollutes their good Aryan blood. Doesn’t stop it from happening, but it might keep it from happening in the middle of Gesia Street, where any goosestepper might see it.” As if to prove Avram right, in the street below them the police pulled Miriam roughly to her feet and ordered her to walk. She hung back and was rewarded with a rifle butt sharply in the small of her naked back. Stumbling, nearly falling, she obeyed.